1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a multifunction printer with a journal device for recording of the data processed in the printer for purposes of securing the data or, respectively, for purposes of documentation, which system includes at least one print unit for printing of input data as well as further printer modules coordinated to the respective printer function.
2. Brief Description of the Background of the Invention Including Prior Art
Such printers are employed for a plurality of different print objects. These print objects comprise documents, checks, savings booklets, protocols, minutes, records, registers, and forms of all kinds, such as, for example, invoices, debit memos, vouchers, driver's licenses, passports, personal identity cards, motor vehicle documents, as well as BTX texts and TTX texts. In addition, a cash-register slip and the like, to be ripped from a journal tape, is understood as such a possible object to be printed on.
Multifunction printers are employed in financial institutions, by postal offices, by communal administrations, in all kinds of state and federal offices, in economic business enterprises, by cooperatives and, in general, in trade.
Such multifunction printers are also employed, for example, in window or counter workplaces where, depending on the department or business character, requirements exist to record the recorded data on a paper journal. Such a journal device requires however substantial space volume in a multifunction printer. Since this kind of printer is now constructed according to a structural modular unit set-up and in order to allow and achieve an economic production as well as a variable component composition, the individual module device groups require a specific space. For example, in addition to a print unit, a print-substrate transport device, an operating key field and/or control panel, an electronic control unit, and a power supply unit, which form together the base model, there are required additional module device groups such as, for example, for the optical character recognition, for the magnetic stripe processing, as well as for the optical line finder and, in particular, for the journal device. It has been shown, as described for example in the European Patent Application EP-A1 0,276,626, that in particular a paper journal requires a substantial space. A paper journal can include a developing tape roll, a supply roll, a tape wind-up roll, a tape take-up reel, and a tape winder, as well as a print counter support with print head. Therefore, such a multifunction printer with a journal device requires space which can negatively influence and affect the apparatus dimensions.
Multifunction printers with a paper journal device have consequently not only high technical equipment requirements but they also require relatively large space volumes and are disadvantageous in this regard.